WordPress Blogging Tools and SEO tips for Online Entrepreneurs
“The Dali Blogger” : Sharing Tips on WordPress Blogging, SEO, Mindset and Life
How to Start a Mastermind Group Effectively
Last year I wrote a post how to start a mastermind group that has been on the first page of Google for a year. I get a lot of traffic to this blog (that I don’t write all to often on now) from this one post. That’s the power of SEO! I say that to say that I’ve had a ton of interest from folks online finding me via Google and Yahoo search asking me how to start a mastermind or how to find the right one to fit in to.
I have started 2 different Mastermind Groups for different niche markets within the last 3 years and have most of the experience in leading them. I’ve learned from my experience and mistakes what things to understand when you are starting a mastermind group. Before you start or join any ole’ mastermind group you will want to have at keep at least 5 things in mind (below).
Both times the benefits of starting and participating in the mastermind groups were immense. I was more productive, motivated and felt I had a big support system in place. I did better financially because of them as well.
As a matter of fact it is commonly said that the income you generate from your business(es) is a direct reflection of the top 5 people you invest your time with. So let’s get to some masterminding rules of thumb to get you started masterminding on the right track!
How To Start a Mastermind Group That Lasts Effectively
From a Mastermind Leader Perspective: Learn from the Online Mastermindress…
1) Know what your Goal for having the Mastermind Group Is .
Ask Yourself:
- Why do you want to start a mastermind group in the first place?
- Do you want to find a group where you can bounce Social Media or SEO ideas and theories off of?
- Do you want to find a mastermind group where you can fit in and have them help you with your information product launches?
- What exactly do you hope to gain from forming the mastermind group? Is it personal and financial development?
- Write down your goals and create a mission statement for your mastermind group that the whole team can rally around.
- Be clear on why you are doing it. Don’t just follow the pack. Your group will last longer if you all have a common goal.
2) How Much Time will You Commit to Leading or Sharing the Mastermind Group Leadership Responsibilities?
Leading a mastermind group not only means that you will devote an hour every other week to have a virtual round table discussion on the best way to launch an information product, build your SEO and web visibility or influence your social media fans. It also means putting in the time to make sure you are aware of every single members’ goals and intentions for participation in the group (as well as their evolving goals).
Be prepared to be a true leader in every sense of the word. Care about the other members’ goals and aspirations. Make them feel important by allowing them to run a mastermind meeting. Leaders also have to follow in order to lead.
Also, be prepared to invest your time in the weekly/biweekly/monthly agenda. One thing I’ve learned is that having somewhat of an agenda or at the least outline will help you get the most out of your mastermind group meetings and will also help your partners see the value in continuing to contribute to the group. If you are not organized it will seem like a waste of your partners’ valuable time.
3) Build a Mastermind Group of True Givers.
While we are on the subject of contribution… Find partners who will contribute weather monetarily or with their time and skills to help the group flourish. Don’t accept any tire-kickers in your group. Keep the complainers and whiners out. You want a group of positive minded, success-driven, go-getters who are creative, and will contribute in any way they can. These folks stick around longer and commit their time and energy into making the group a collaborative success.
4) Don’t Just Be Mastermind Group Member. Get to Know Each other on a Personal Level.
This is something I highly recommend. It can’t be business all of the time. Besides mastermind partners are more of like business partners who are also great friends. Think of Henry Ford , Napoleon Hill , and John D. Rockefeller . Those folks’ mastermind partners were almost like family. The more you know each other on a personal level, the more you trust one another and the more the group grows business wise because of it.
5) Stay In Touch and Grow In Between Mastermind Groups Meetings.
Depending on how rallied and committed your cause and your group is you will want to possible have accountability partnerships AKA "goal buddies." Having someone that you can connect with on a more frequent basis in between your meetings will help you on the right path to accomplishing all of your online marketing goals. Share tips, articles, valuable tweets etc on Facebook or FriendFeed. Keep each other motivated by staying in touch in between sessions will make all the more difference in a cohesive mastermind group that outlasts and lives out its mission.
Any questions on how to start your mastermind group? Are you ready to join one? Let us hear how helpful these tips were for you.
I appreciate you!
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Make Blogging Easier with Blog Publishing Tools like Scribefire
I’ve been using the Scribefire plugin for Mozilla Firefox for several weeks and have found many benefits for the entrepreneurial/small business blogger. If you’re just reading up on Scribefire, in a nutshell it is one of many free blog publishing tools that makes posting to your blog easier. Of course, we all want to do things a little quicker and want convenience, and I’ve found this tool helps both ways. There are two distinct ways to use Scribefire.
1) As a blog editing tool
2) As a blog publishing toolSpecifically the Scribefire Blog Editor Enables you to:
- Create draft blog posts in a jiffy and save them to work on them later (without having to log in to your blog publishing platform)
- Write your post in plain text with a user friendly word processor interface
- Customize your content in the html editor (you can also use css for content style)
- Preview your blog post as it would appear right on your blog
- Import all of your published blog posts into scribefire so that you can easily reference previous posts
- Preview your published posts just in case you want to copy an excerpt from it into your current blog post
- Copy the URL (link) to your blog post to easily link it to your current post (by clicking on a "copy" icon)
- Save your published notes in order to re-purpose your content (i.e. write follow up blog posts as a part of a blog post series)
I particularly appreciate the ability to quickly draft a post without the hassle of logging in to my favorite blog publishing platform - WordPress. When you have a sudden burst of inspiration, you can quickly save your draft in Scribefire or export it at the click of one button save it as a draft on WordPress or your preferred blogging platform.
A view of the scribefire word processing interface is below.
You have a few tabs on the left, one of which is the green share button. From there, you can bookmark your posts on delicious as well as share them on Digg, StumbleUpon and some other social bookmarking sites. Additionally, you can share your post as soon as you are done via Facebook.
On the right of the scribefire blog editor you’ll see:
- The blogs you have added to Scribefire
- Draft blog entries
- A list of your blog’s categories
- Options. From here you can decide when to publish and what tags to use as well as link to any non WordPress sites and enable some ping services, which will notify the search engines of new content on your blog. For a cool thorough list of ping servers read Cenay’s Giant List of Ping Servers article .
Also, Scribefire integrates with the Zemanta plugin , a plugin (also for Mozilla Firefox) that easily allows you to add value on your blog, by providing related content you can link to at the click of a mouse button to increase your value for your readers and provide quality linking sources to help build your SEO and authority. (See this post below for examples).
You can categorize your blog posts with the categories on your blog as you can with ScribeFire.
Scribefire also integrates social media components to help you promote your content (or help it travel further).
The Blog Publishing Limitations of Scribefire: SEO and Images
There are a few limitations to using this tool from an SEO standpoint and webmaster.
You’ll have to log in to WordPress to update your title, keywords, blog description. Although you can add tags in Scribefire.
A second limitation to the tool, especially for new bloggers who are less code savvy is working with images. You will have to get into some code to add title and alt tags and some SEO tweaks here.
However, if you don’t know html, you could use one of my favorite free blogging tools - Zemanta - to help with getting cool images for your blog articles.
Overall, I highly recommend any serious blogger to use this tool for its ability to help you easily:
- draft
- post
- link back
- re-purpose blog content
The Scribefire blog publishing tool gets a B+ from the Dali Blogger. Get it and tell me what you think!
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DaliBurgado.com Gets a Facelift and New Direction
New WordPress Theme Tweaks, New Direction, New Life at DaliBurgado.com
I’m back here to break the silence after a few months…yikes. So I’m blowing some new life into DaliBurgado.com.
I’m going by my new alias here, "The Dali Blogger" (Dali Blogga if you want to put in the New York accent up in there).
After the not so cool experience of moving this blog from an awful hosting company to my favorite folks (IX Web Hosting ) and working on my other blog at Secrets to Web Success , I’m back!
I’m going to give myself the goal of blogging here once a week while I work on:
- 5 other niche blogs
- Launching a blogging information product with my girls Cenay and Carol at Secrets to Web Success
- Recording some songs and commercials
- Working on a big SEO project
- Working on some web development projects
Did I mention I had my plate full? ha ha
So please share your thoughts on the new theme tweaks I’ve made and let me know what you’re up to!
I appreciate you.
Dali
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A Personal Lesson in Online Entrepreneurship
- Image via Wikipedia
My readers, I’m back with a lesson in online entrepreneurship . Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on my team blog at Secrets to Web Success writing the Motivation Mondays and Web Success Wednesday columns and putting some touches on a new Joint Venture information product on blogging for small businesses. I never meant to neglect my awesome readers!
Not only have I been working diligently with my blog partners there, but I also started a 6 Week Small Business Blogging Course and will be wrapping that up tomorrow! I’ve assisted 4 super cool and quite perfect clients install new blogs and prepare a blog strategy! And I did all this while highlighting all my mistakes on this blog. ha ha (You have to laugh at yourself now)…Now despite my disappearance for a while I still have pagerank and traffic. Not too shabby…
So I’ve been super productive even though I’ve been quiet here. So I say all that not to brag, but to leave you with my new motto - A big lesson in online entrepreneurship…and that is to simply:
Be Vigorous in Words and Action.
-I took this from a fortune cookie and it totally describes what I’ve been up to.
Now apparently, I’ve been not so vigorous in words on this blog, but I have a few plans up the sleeve here.
Within the last few weeks I’ve also been making awesome connections with both local and online entrepreneurs who have inspired me as well.
In my last blog post I began interviewing entrepreneurs. I’ve met some pretty cool entrepreneurs lately like Motivation Mama and Eric Hamm (whom I reconnected with recently) - both local bloggers in my part of the neck of the globe (DC and VA).
From speaking and interviewing Albert Hallado , Melanie Yost , and Tonya Pruitt , I’ve gotten tons of online entrepreneurial success nuggets.
From Alber Hallado’s recommendation to "Celebrate the small successes" and not just the big ones to keep your success in perspective to my friend Melanie Yost’s encouragement to shift some of the negative language you might be using to Motivation Mama’s Focus on Five Post encouraging you to focus on 5 areas of your life you want to improve…there’s just been a bunch of entrepreneurial goodness to share.
I’m reevaluating some goals as I type, but I will be back soon to share some great tips, encouragement and strategies to keep motivated in your online and offline entrepreneurial ventures.
To Our Success
P.S.
Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (or even DM me to reconnect).
I appreciate you!
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Online Entrepreneurship Interview with Tonya Pruitt
Recently I had the privilege to connect with an successful online entrepreneur friend of mine, Tonya Pruitt , blogger on Affiliate Home Based Business topics. Tonya shared some lessons in online entrepreneurship and gave us her opinion on the importance of having a positive mindset as well as personal development in your online business success. I met Tonya on Twitter several months ago and enjoy following her.
Let’s see what Tonya had to say…
How long have you been an online entrepreneur?
I’ve been marketing online since Oct. 1998.
Tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial background?
Wow, I actually started my entrepreneurial life back in my senior year of high school in 1994. I spent 5 out of 7 classes in business training classes that enabled me to start my first business that year. I started in Network Marketing at 18 years old. So I’ve now had almost 15 years of business building training and experience.
What businesses have you created/joined and which one is your favorite?
Currently I have TLP Unlimited which is the same "business" I’ve had all along though it’s had many different faces. I started off with Network Marketing/MLM and have progressed through the years from that to eBay and now for the past 9 years I’ve been focused on Direct Marketing and Affiliate Marketing as well as web development.
Personally, I love what Affiliate Marketing provides for the individual who chooses to get into this form of sales. You never have to create your own products (unless you want to). You never touch the products. You never do refunds and customer support. You are able to run a very financially sound business without all the headaches of product creation, and distribution … What more could you ask for?!
I also love the ability to pick and choose the markets I want to sell in. Affiliate marketing enables you to be flexible. I call it a seasonal type of business. For example, one of my business models (I’m giving secrets away here) is to promote what’s IN SEASON at the time. During the holidays I promote products that people want to buy then. During Spring I promote flowers, gardening stuff, etc. During summer I promote beach gear, travel packages etc. During fall I promote winter clothing etc. During winter I’ll promote snow shovels, gear, clothes, etc.
I also promote the sports products only during their particular season. It increases sales when you promote while people are really searching for those products.
How related are personal development, mindset, and an entrepreneurs success in your opinion?
This is a HOT topic in my opinion. I personally think if you’ll use the personal development products, and the Mindset products in conjunction with your business development products you will find success. I think the two types of products are NEEDED and very much a part of my own personal system I use to build my success. They are the key to anyone finding success.
The thing people need to realize though is that only YOU can change your life . You can read these products all day long but if you don’t apply what you are reading and put into action the tips you receive you will not succeed.
The systems in these books won’t work unless you work the system.
How do you truly gauge what a "successful entrepreneur" is?
I gage success in any aspect of your life, in how much you help others! If you can provide a good product or service to others and change their lives then you have succeeded. Otherwise you’re just in it for the money and to me money is not everything!
What are the 5 keys to online entrepreneurial success?
Tonya had more than 5 keys here
- Education
- Action
- Consistence
- Persistence
- Repeating what you do RIGHT!
- Learn from your mistakes, and move on. Failure is only what happens when you quit!
What are your top 3 ways to build relationships online?
Connection Options: Links to top social networking sites
- http://profile.to/tlpunlimited (Facebook)
- http://www.myspace.com/tlpunlimited (Myspace )
- http://www.twitter.com/tlpunlimited (Twitter 1)
- http://www.twitter.com/tonyapruitt (Twitter 2)
- http://www.linkedin.com/in/tlpunlimited (Linked In)
- http://www.affiliatehomebasedbusiness.com (Blog)
- Tons more… will leave ya with this.
Visit Tonya Pruitt’s blog at Affiliate Home Based Business dot com.
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New Online Entrepreneur Interview Podcast Series Begins March 2009
Hello dear readers! It’s been a crazy month. I wanted to announce that I’m starting an online entrepreneur interview series here at daliburgado.com ! It’s one of my goals to create a more interactive community and more training here this year, so I hope you are excited as I am about this interview series!
If you’re an online entrepreneur who has experienced great success no matter how long you’ve been online contact me via twitter by direct message at @daliburgado to schedule an interview.
Recently I had the pleasure to kick off my new online entrepreneur interview series with Patricia Kagwiria Mahulo also known as Party Plan Pat . Patricia has a cool blog that caters to the home party plan and direct sales industry. Whether you are in the industry or not, Party Plan Pat has tons of great insight on success and the mindset of a successful marketer that you will find of immense value.
Enjoy the first podcast. I look forward to your comments.
I appreciate you!
Dali Burgado
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How to Get Out of your Personal Comfort Zone
Did you know we all have a "personal comfort zone "?
According to Wikipedia, "Comfort Zone " is:
A limited set of behaviors and environments that a person can engage in without becoming anxious…
It is set of environments and behaviors with which one is comfortable, without creating a sense of risk .
One very critical act that every online entrepreneur must take is getting our of his or her "comfort zone ".
Being in your "comfort zone" entails your contentment with doing the things that you’ve always done before. Instead of taking risks, those who hang out in the comfort zone tend to avoid risk.
Now of course taking risks is not just doing something completely wild. Entrepreneurs who get out of their comfort zone take calculated risk.
Getting out of the comfort zone entails pushing aside any fear of failure or success that you might have and taking "out of the ordinary" action to achieve your goals.
How to Get Out of Your Personal Comfort Zone
The more you get out of your comfort zone, the more you realize that your uncomfortable zone becomes your comfort zone. It’s all a matter of personal and business growth, and if you’ve been a reader of my blog for sometime, you know I equate to be one and the same.
So how do you get out of your personal comfort zone?
Here are a few tips to help you:
1) List a few things you want to do but haven’t gotten around to doing (this is the "I’ve been meaning to do list").
2) Write down why you have not completed each task (often times this will either be a fear of the outcome or a fear of what others might think of you).
3) Write down 1-3 action steps you can take to get past the fear.
4) Ask yourself what’s the best thing that can happen if you do take action and accomplish that goal.
5) Take small steps towards achieving that goal.
The key is to realize that although you might have a fear of something that does not mean you should let that fear rule you. Take small action steps towards that goal and you will soon start to realize that it was a lot easier than you thought to get out of that personal comfort zone.
Leon Li has a great post on the dangers of staying in your comfort zone . It’s a quick read and provides a cool analogy on the importance of always reaching to grow out of your zone.
Something to think about:
What one thing have you been putting off this week or month? Write the action plan according to the outline above and take small steps towards reaching that goal.
What have you done to get out of a comfortable situation? How did it help you grow? Let us know!
I appreciate you!
Dali Burgado
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3 Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur
There are many characteristics an entrepreneur must possess in order to thrive.
Today we’ll focus on three major ones.
I. The Successful Entrepreneur Makes Quick Decisions:
In order to excel as an online entrepreneur, you must make quick decisions and move forward. You must decide that you will be the best at what you do.
Every day you make countless decisions that affect your productivity. You must decide what you will work on and if your tasks will be a productive or counterproductive use of your time.
Sometimes, personal challenges affect our focus and drive.
Just a few days ago I was in a personal challenge slump and did not find I could focus or stay productive as a result. Thankfully, I told myself, "Dali, you cannot let your personal challenges take you off course. You’ve got to get back to it and complete all the things you know you must do in order to excel."
If you’ve followed - or just know me- you’ll probably notice that I’m very proactive and productive. Yet, it wasn’t until I made the decision to move on in spite of my challenges that I began to regain focus and get my productivity groove back. The last two weeks have been incredibly productive for me because I made the decision not to let my personal circumstances tear me down.
II. The Successful Entrepreneur Takes Extreme Measures
You must take extreme measures and do what no one else won’t in order to have the success that most don’t. Sounds like the mindset of an ambitious online entrepreneur?!
Today I sat and did some major keyword research for a new niche blog I’m creating. I realize that in total, I invested (not spent) about 3 hours of my time doing the tedious, yet critical steps any successful online entrepreneur must take in order to thrive and dominate any niche. Yes, my friends, it’s a long time…and yes I could outsource, but sometimes you just love to be a control freak (lol).
When you take the extra steps to outshine "competition" you ensure that you are more visible to your target market, and that pays dividends!
III. Takes Full Responsibility for Failures & Successes
Too often many of us feel the need to blame others for our failures and don’t look in the mirror and see that we are the causes of all our failures and successes. We can blame others as much as we want, but remember that we can’t control circumstances outside ourselves, but we can control how we react to external circumstances.
What other attributes do you feel are critical to the success of an entrepreneur?
For some really cool inspiration check out an interview with Party Plan Pat courtesy of the Traveling Saleswoman. While most of you may not be in the Home party plan business, this interview will definitely serve as some major inspiration as to what is possible when you have the mindset of an entrepreneur.
In fact, I’ve decided to begin an interview series with successful online entrepreneurs soon, and will be having Party Plan Pat as a guest really soon. Stay tuned…
As always, I appreciate you!
Dali Burgado
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